Get to know one of Grokker's favorite experts, Dr. Vicki Uwannah, PsychD, as she discusses mental health, her experience with Grokker, and more.

Vicki Uwannah, PsychD hosts a variety of videos and guides on Grokker to help members identify their ideal social self-care practices, de-stress, deal with anxiety, navigate relationships and grow their peace and self-confidence. Through preclinical psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral techniques, Dr. Vicki helps members increase their self-awareness, better manage their emotions, overcome self-perceptions that hold them back and develop stronger friendships, work relationships and romantic partnerships. We caught up with Dr. Vicki recently for a deeper dive.

What motivates your work?

My passion for people! What unites us is our desire to be known, understood and accepted. Relationships are the sustenance of life, but most importantly the quality of our relationships with ourselves is the foundation that holds up everything else.

How do you help Grokker members work toward better mental health?

On a preclinical level, I use a lot of techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. It's a really practical approach to helping people resolve some of their distress and achieve their goals, because it takes a two-pronged approach. 

First, it looks at the cognitive element of our disorders or dysfunction, that is, whether we're holding onto negative beliefs or have particularly unhelpful thinking patterns. CBT helps us to really challenge some of those thoughts. 

For example, if we ask a coworker something and he gives us a sour face, we might assume that he doesn't like us or is mad or that we did something wrong. But the reality might be that he has a headache, is worried about a personal matter or is just feeling grumpy, all things that have nothing whatever to do with us. If we challenge our negative beliefs, we can realize that we actually don't know why he wasn't pleasant rather than assuming the worst.

Then the second prong of CBT is the behavioral approach. It really gets us to think about, okay, how can we do something different? And the idea is that if you think in a different way, the emotions that are elicited may be different, and then your behavior subsequently could be different. Trying different behaviors and taking different actions allows us to see if this will shift things psychologically for us.

In the prior example, we might rest in the knowledge that we don't know the whole picture, remember that our colleague is usually friendly, or ask him if something is bothering him.

What are some myths about getting help for mental health that you'd like to challenge?

One of the biggest myths that people have about getting help for mental health issues is that they only really need to reach out for help if there's something really wrong with them, you know, when they're going through a crisis, they're really distressed, or they're experiencing severe mental ill health, like psychosis, schizophrenia, something like that. 

There's so much opportunity for people to boost their low moods, to feel less stressed and anxious and more confident, to better manage their emotions and to have more resilient relationships—all without being in crisis.

What tips do you have for Grokker members who want to achieve stronger mental health?

I would say start, just start watching some content. If there's anyone out there like myself, I sometimes need to hear things a couple of times for it to digest, for me to warm up to the idea, before I can then envision myself doing it and then actually doing it. 

So I'd say just, start having a look, start watching the videos, just to become comfortable with the material. You don't necessarily have to act right away, but it could be a really good motivator for you just to become familiar with the material. So I would encourage anyone to just start watching, start listening, start taking part and see where that takes you.

How does your work bring you joy?

What brings me the greatest joy is when people have that lightbulb moment and they realize that they are worth it, that they believe in themselves, they believe that they're lovable, they believe that they have value to offer, and they start to make choices that align with that. For example, those beliefs might lead them to establish greater boundaries in the workplace or in their relationships or to really start engaging in self-care. 

Where can members find you on Grokker?

You can find my guides and videos here. Hope to see you there!

More about Dr. Vicki 

Based in Birmingham, England, Victoria ("Vicki") Uwannah, PsychD, practices as a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, helping clients first understand themselves better than change limiting beliefs and behaviors. Through psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral techniques, Dr. Vicki guides clients through growth in self-awareness, better management of emotions, overcoming self-perceptions that hold them back, and forging stronger relationships.

After beginning her career as a specialist in the personality disorders service of the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Dr. Vicki established her own practice, Liberty Therapies. She also co-hosts a podcast, The Therapy Floor, with Dr. Ritz Birah.

Dr. Vicki earned a PsychD at Surrey University and is a member of the British Psychological Society.